Pick the ONE thing you want to improve, and focus on that ONE skill.

What I mean, is if you want to focus on fine motor skills, stay focused on task at hand.

Here, it is to strengthen the little muscles so that down the line your child can correctly cut and hold a pencil.

You want to stay focused with your goal.

If the goal is fine motor grip, try not to also throw in letter recognition and sequencing. You can keep the brain power to a minimum so that your reluctant toddler or preschooler can really zone in on what they need to work on.

If you are over there nodding your head like, “Yes!, Yes! I need this! Give me all the baby Breakfast Invitations!”, You are going to LOVE this.

Providing your one-year-old (this includes all babies under two) a bordermay just buy you a little more time. I say may, because they are under two. They just learned to walk. Chances are, they don’t want to sit still. - and they shouldn’t.

But sometimes, mom needs a minute and Baby Block Box will do the trick.

It was easy, and it was awesome.

Something interesting has happened since my oldest started preschool.

What happened, is that my middle guy (three-years-old) has come out of his shell and is beginning to take risks with his learning at home.

You see, my 4.5-year-old means EVERYTHING to my three-year-old. According to him, he’s the coolest, smartest best friend a brother can have.

But something happens when the two of them are learning together.

My oldest takes the lead and my middle guy follows along not ready to take chances with his learning. He doesn’t want to get it wrong in front of his biggest idol.

So where multi-age learning is important, it is also important for me to check in with my three-year-old and create simple set-ups that we can do together to reinforce some basic skills for Kindergarten Readiness.